Friends forging a course together through the unexpected

So I could spend some time in this post apologizing for my long absence, or I could just get on with my post. I don’t want to make excuses so I’ll choose option two!

Along with my theme of being behind, I realized one of my Christmas gifts from Dave has gone unused. He got me a box of spices from Urban Accents. I was really excited about it when I got it, but I stowed it away and you know what they say about out of sight out of mind…I opened the box up and one item in there really caught my eye: a Sweet & Tangy Pickling Spice. I have never made my own pickles before and I thought I’d give it a shot.

My town has a Farmer’s Market every Thursday morning. The problem is I usually remember it as I drive past it on my way to work. Last week I remembered on Tuesday and I made sure I was up in enough time on Thursday to go on a walk, stop by the Farmer’s Market and pick up some farm fresh cucumbers! The packet in my spice box only called for 1lb of cucumbers, but the deal was $7.50 for a plastic grocery bag full. I had $8 cash on me so it seemed perfect. Fast forward to this past Sunday when I started this recipe and I realized 1lb is only 3 cucumbers! Needless to say I need to come up with something to do with all the rest of the cucumbers I have now.

Open the spice packet and add it to the boiling mixture along with the sugar.

3. Make sure the sugar is dissolved and then lower the heat and simmer for 10 minutes.

4. While the mixture is simmering, wash and cut the cucumbers into spears.

5. Place the spears in a heatproof dish and pour the hot mixture over the spears.

6. Let these sit for 1 hour at room temperature.

As you can see in this photo, I first poured the mixture into a bowl. I immediatly realized the mixture wouldn’t cover the cucumbers so I moved the spears and mixture to a shallow dish. This still didn’t cover them completely so every once and awhile I’d turn the spears making sure they call got a fair time to soak.

After the hour was up, I tried a pickle and it was delightful. The only thing that was lacking was the temperature. I like pickles cold. The package told me to serve the pickles immediately or refrigerate. I decided to refridgerate so I could get the cool crunchy pickle I craved! I fit all the spears into a tall glass jar (I knew I kept these for a reason!) and proceeded to pour the mixture into the jar. Well that filled up about ¾ of the way. I knew they needed to be covered completely so I ended up adding some water. I screwed on the top and then turned the jar upside down a few times to make sure the mixture was fully combined. I was pretty pleased with how easy it was to do this and how accomplished I felt. Do you have a special recipe you use for pickling? I’d love to hear about it!

This weekend I fulfilled the requisite fall tradition of visiting a pumpkin patch and apple orchard. Requisite sounds like I didn’t want to go or that I didn’t enjoy myself, but neither is true! My girlfriends from college and I all met up at the closest house and then drove over to the Keller Farmstand in Oswego together.

We caught up on each other’s lives while searching through the apple orchard for good apples. It was a bit late in the season so there weren’t a ton to choose from. That coupled with the strange spots on the apples in a majority of the rows and we really had our work cut out for us. In one of the last rows, we found a really great tree and honestly got almost all the apples from there.

We made our way over to the ‘patch’ after that which was really a patch of grass where they had placed pumpkins instead of the field they were actually grown in. You could take a hayride over to the legitimate patch, but we found some good ones in the fake patch. We then came upon a bin of fun little gourds and mini pumpkins. We picked up a few of those and then when we went to pay we saw a section of farmstand items. They had pie fillings, pickled items, honey, dips, and sauces. I picked up a jar of pickles and paid before I could buy anything else.

Good Times with Good Friends!

Oh and we couldn’t pass on the cinnamon donuts and apple cider. We shared an order and the fall day felt complete!